1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ticket booking and issuing system and a method for the system, and in particular, relates to a ticket booking and issuing system and the method for making a ticket reservation to a ticket reservation system of an airline company or the like from an intranet (an in-house communication network) including an in-house agency system and a plurality of personal computers (hereinafter referred to as “PCs”) connected with each other by, for example, a local area network (hereinafter referred to as a “LAN”).
2. Description of the Related Art
A large company makes an agency contract with an airline company, a railway company or the like so that the in-house agency is equipped with ticket booking and issuing terminals for issuing tickets in order for their employees to arrange tickets which are necessary for their business trip.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a process flow of a plane ticket booking operation in an in-house travel agency according to a prior art.
As shown in FIG. 2, an in-house travel agency is equipped with a ticket booking and issuing terminal as well as a fare adjustment processing system. The ticket booking and issuing terminal has a printer for issuing plane tickets in addition to a keyboard and a display for input operations, and is on-line-connected to a ticket reservation system of an airline company via a dedicated line. The fare adjustment processing system may be a computer for processing a fare adjustment, which has an input device for inputting data and an output device for outputting a bill or the like as the processing result. Circled numerals in FIG. 2 indicate the order of the booking operation flow. The process flow of a plane ticket booking operation will now be described referring to FIG. 2.
{circle around (1)} An in-house user who wants to buy plane tickets, first, notify the in-house travel agency of the following information by phone, facsimile or the like to apply for booking and issuing plane tickets.                a) Ticket booking and issuing information such as departure date and time, a destination and requested flight numbers.        b) Purchaser information such as the affiliation and the name of the applicant.        c) Cost processing information such as items of expenditure.        
{circle around (2)} An operator of the in-house travel agency enters the ticket booking and issuing information notified from the in-house user by the keyboard of the ticket booking and issuing terminal.
{circle around (3)} The ticket booking and issuing information entered into the terminal is sent to the ticket reservation system to book tickets.
{circle around (4)} The result of the ticket booking is sent from the reservation system to be displayed, and the booked tickets are outputted from the printer.
{circle around (5)} The operator inputs from the input device of the fare adjustment processing system the information on the sum of fares or the like shown on the display in addition to the purchaser information and the cost processing information notified from the in-house user.
{circle around (6)} The tickets outputted from the printer are sent to the purchaser.
{circle around (7)} The amount of money for the purchased tickets or the like is calculated in a predetermined interval in the fare adjustment processing system to issue a bill, which is sent to the purchaser.
{circle around (8)} The purchaser confirms the bill and asks the accounting department to pay for the bill by phone, facsimile or the like.
A conventional in-house ticket booking operation, however, is complicated in the purchasing procedure, because an operator is involved in sending and receiving data for booking. On the other hand, as the Internet develops, more and more PCs with an Internet connection capability have been introduced in-house and also, in airline companies or transportation companies like railroad companies, functions of a ticket reservation system have been expanded so that the ticket booking requests can be accepted via the Internet. However, even if tickets are booked via the Internet, the problem of a complicated purchase procedure hasn't yet been solved, because only a travel agency or the like can issue tickets or receive the payment for the fares.